Personal Recollections by Allen O. Gamble, Ph.D. the Selection of The

The Selection of the Mercury Astronauts: Personal Recollections by Allen O. Gamble, Ph.D. The selection of the first astronauts is only one episode in the long history leading up to manned space flight. So let us first place this half-year period I’m going to tell you about into historical perspective. Perhaps it all started with the invention of the rocket by the ancient Chinese. Not until then did the world have a propulsion device that could operate in a vacuum. Or perhaps the beginning was as recent as March 1926—the “Kitty Hawk” of rocketry—when Dr. Robert Goddard successfully fired the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket. Only then did we have fully controllable rocket propulsion that could be shut off and reignited at will, and with high thrust per pound. These were necessary precursors of space flight. But we all know that the real space age began on October 4,1957, when Russia’s Sputnik I became the first man-made object to orbit the earth. And on October 1,1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established, one year after Sputnik startled the world and galvanized the United States into action. It was based on the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA. Only one week later, on October 7, NASA started a small man-in-space organization called the Space Task Group, located at the Langley Research Center near Norfolk, Virginia. Dr. Robert Gilruth became director of the Space Task Group, which later became the Manned Spacecraft Center based in Houston, Texas. That same October and November, while many at the new space agency were being assigned to hardware projects like spacecraft, booster rockets, and communications, a few of us were assigned to work toward selecting the first humans to fly in space. The leader (and the first person assigned) was an engineer, Charles Donlan, who was assistant director of Project Mercury, NASA’s first man-in-space project. The second was Warren North, a former NACA test pilot. I became the third the following day after returning to NASA from three years at the National Science Foundation. There I had been computerizing and expanding the National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel. Now I was once more NASA’s manpower director, in charge of qualification requirements, recruiting, examining, performance evaluation, and training programs. This new assignment came as quite a surprise to me since I had known nothing about what was going on. In addition, there were three military officers assigned on temporary duty to NASA: Air Force flight surgeon Dr. Stanley White, Army flight surgeon Dr. William Augerson, and Navy psychologist Dr. Robert Voas. We six had continuous full-time jobs for five months on this project. Others worked with us from time to time as needed, including a high-level Special Committee on Life Science appointed in late November [1958]. What Do We Call Them? When we started the job, we had a sense of unreality. Here we were, about to take the first small steps by men that would eventually lead to what, years later, Neil Armstrong called “one giant leap for mankind.” This was new, unexplored territory. We had to plow new ground, full of stumps and rocks, with few landmarks to guide us. Remember—this was two and one-half years before the first Russian, Yuri Gagarin, and the first American, Alan Shepard, would fly in space within three weeks of each other, on April 12 and May 5,1961. Oddly enough, one of the first hot issues was the names or terms. What should we call the men who would one day fly into space? At Langley Research Center on December 1,1958, we brainstormed, and every name mentioned went up on the blackboard. Of course, somebody said “spaceman” and someone else said “superman” and still another said “space pilot.” But perhaps he would be a passenger instead of a pilot, so some wise guy proposed “man-in-a-can.” Other suggestions were made, some kidding and some serious. Then one of us came up with a solid suggestion, “Mercury,” which made sense. It referred not to the planet Mercury and not to the quicksilver metal mercury, but to the messenger of the Roman gods, who had wings on his heels and legendary speed of flight. But someone had heard the word mentioned before, so he called Washington. Sure enough, only five days earlier, on November 26, NASA headquarters had officially adopted Project Mercury as the name of the first American manned spaceflight effort, but not yet used the term publicly or even told us. With our best name so far already taken, out came the dictionaries and thesauruses. Someone found that the term ‘aeronaut,’ referring to those who ride in balloons and other lighter- than-air vehicles, was derived from “sailor in the air.” From this we arrived at ‘astronaut,’ meaning “sailor among the stars.” We thought we had actually invented a new word, but it later turned up as having been used earlier, in 1929, probably in science fiction. In any event, the term astronaut rang true and was adopted. The Soviets followed suit with ‘cosmonaut,’ meaning “sailor in the universe.” All the while we were debating the three really basic personnel questions of duties, qualifications, and recruiting. First, what would an astronaut actually do in space? A job analysis may be prosaic, but it is the only sound way to start determining what kind of person to select for a job. We had to start with a valid job description before we could start answering our second basic question: What should the qualification requirements be? At this point the only living things to fly in space had been seeds, fruit flies, several monkeys, and the dog named Laika. Would the first astronauts also be just passengers? If so, their only duties would be to survive, observe, and report, and thus they should be primarily selected to withstand the expected rigors of space. But no one could tell us whether they would merely ride or have control like a pilot. The plans for the space capsule were still being debated. Our third key question was also a seemingly routine personnel matter: What would be the best recruiting sources? Here we were sure that the answer would be to recruit from the best talent in the nation, especially civilians. After all, the President and Congress had bypassed the military in setting up the ill-starred Project Vanguard. More recently, they had done likewise in establishing NASA itself as a civilian agency, to operate publicly rather than in secret, “for the benefit of all mankind.” Help Wanted: “Forty Scientific Specialists to be Engaged on Special Research Projects” So early in December [1958] we drafted what was designed to be a public recruiting and examination announcement. We first titled it “Research Astronaut” and later “Aeronautical and Space Scientist, Astronaut.” These were not ordinary jobs, and they needed special exception from the usual Civil Service requirements. Also, it was obviously premature to make anything public as to our plans. So within the next few days we managed to get the Civil Service Commission to publish in the Federal Register an innocuous and brief authorization. It referred to a paragraph number in another document and simply said to add eleven words to that paragraph, “NASA: Forty scientific specialists to be engaged on special research projects.” Since we had to hedge on the pilot-versus-passenger question, our draft announcement (which never was published) invited applications from a strange array of occupations. Listed were pilots, especially test pilots; crew members of experimental submarines; arctic and Antarctic explorers; parachute jumpers; mountain climbers; deep sea divers; and observers-under-test for extremes of environmental conditions such as acceleration, deceleration, zero gravity, high or low atmospheric pressures, variations in carbon dioxide and oxygen concentration, high and low ambient temperatures, etc. As you can see, our basic concern at this point was with the feared stresses and hazards of launch, space flight, and reentry. We were looking primarily for proven toughness. This draft also listed other requirements, including a college degree in science, engineering, or medicine. It was agreed to by all as the best we would do at the moment. Five days later, on December 15,1958, the policy question of passenger versus pilot was resolved. The astronauts would play an important role during even the first flights. They would monitor and adjust the cabin environment. They would operate the communications system. They would make physiological, astronomical, and meteorological observations that could not be made by instruments. Most important, they would be able to operate the reaction controls in space, and be capable of initiating descent from orbit. This was the key part—that the astronaut could take over control of the spacecraft itself. It was a major policy decision, strongly desired by the pilots and quite different from the original Soviet policy of having their cosmonauts ride as mere passengers. I think we must all agree that events have proven the wisdom of this American decision. Witness the several potential disasters averted by astronaut action, as well as manual docking, spacewalks, and the manned landings and operations on the moon. The following day two more changes were made. One change was to give top preference to test pilots, especially those with high-altitude jet aircraft experience. The other was a proposal to ask aircraft companies and selected government agencies, both civilian and military to nominate their best men, and thus put their organizational reputations on the line as to the quality of their nominees.

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